Category: Fine Art

Jump Photo Arts, the team behind the phenomenally successful Starsnappers Project, is now launching a brand new art gallery in London dedicated to LoFi photography.

iPhone photography by Wayne J. Cosshall

The Starsnappers project began in 2003 when digital technology had already taken hold of the photographic industry. Starsnappers developed its portrait workshops with the aim of allowing children to use state of the art digital camera equipment under the supervision of professional photographers. The immediacy of the digital format allowed children to see the fruits of their creativity without the delay of image processing and printing.

Continuing their policy of embracing all things photography, Jump Photo Arts are now launching a brand new gallery celebrating artworks at the other end of the photographic spectrum. LoFi photography includes film cameras such as Holga, Lomo, Diana, and Polaroid. iPhone photography will also be included due to the camera’s primitive lens.

Visitors will be able to view and purchase a selection of the most interesting examples of LoFi photography – all full-size and professionally framed. It’s a great opportunity to pick up a unique, fascinating piece of art whilst fostering the careers of emerging artists and talent alike.

It’s often difficult for artists at the early stages of their career to find professional outlets for their work. The LoFi Gallery, London will champion new practitioners who are keeping the art of analogue photography alive, whilst offering them a public platform to display their photos.

Artistic Director Marc Kenyon says: “In the age of instant digital photography, whereby you can keep clicking until you have a perfect recreation of your subject, we hope to bring back some of the mystery, spontaneity and magic to the craft. It’s about capturing a moment in time rather than replicating images. The photos we love are stimulating, beautiful, sometimes challenging, but always authentic.”

The LoFi Gallery, London is the first initiative from newly relaunched not-for-profit arts organisation, Jump Photo Arts. Formerly known as the Starsnappers Project, the change in name reflects the ambitious new rostrum of projects set to launch in 2012. Watch this space for more exciting new developments.

The LoFi Gallery, London will be based in Deptford, South East London. The inaugural exhibition will open on 1st August 2012.

If you would like to submit your Lo Fi images for consideration, please email [email protected]

Google has launched its Art Project, an ambitious project to bring the art works of the world’s galleries and museums onto the web in deep zoomable, detailed form.

Currently Art Project has work from the following institutions on show:

Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin – Germany

Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington DC – USA

The Frick Collection, NYC – USA

Gemäldegalerie, Berlin – Germany

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC – USA

MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, NYC – USA

Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid – Spain

Museo Thyssen – Bornemisza, Madrid – Spain

Museum Kampa, Prague – Czech Republic

National Gallery, London – UK

Palace of Versailles – France

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam – The Netherlands

The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg – Russia

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow – Russia

Tate Britain, London – UK

Uffizi Gallery, Florence – Italy

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam – The Netherlands

Each of those has chosen to show some galleries and some works. So this is a work in progress.

As a tool for art students, photographers (who can learn a lot from painting) and more this is a wonderful tool that will become more useful over time. While nothing is the same as standing in one of these great institutions and examining the work in person, this is a really amazing alternative.

The San Diego Art Institute’s “Museum of the Living Artist” is a 501 c 3 non-profit organization that promotes the visual arts.We are calling artists to submit to our 51st International Award Exhibition.

SDAI is a great institution supporting the arts. It has excellent, modern exhibition facilities.

Many students doing a photography or fine art study program fail completely to get out of it all they could. Here is how to improve on this.

During the course of a semester of study, students are caught up in the tasks of note taking and doing projects/assignments. This dominates all thinking: the looming deadlines and examinations (if the course has them). This keeps their focus on doing what has to be done and not on drawing personal insights from the work they are doing.

One way to overcome this is for the student to take the opportunity of the breaks and holidays to sit down with their visual diaries and assignments and reflect on the work they have done, what they have learning and what they want to pursue from there. This reflection is critical and well done visual diaries and notebooks can greatly assist this by allowing the student to refresh themselves on what they did earlier in the semester. Few if any colleges encourage this, mainly because everyone, staff and students alike, are just plain exhausted and looking forward to the break.

All art students should also study creativity and the various ways of working with this, stimulating it and sharpening it as a tool you can control. This involves being exposed to the thinking that has happened about creativity since Freud.

Based on the Roland Photo Marking System (RPMS), the MPX-90 uses a durable diamond-tipped stylus to imprint hard surfaces including stainless steel, titanium, iron, gold, silver, copper, platinum, brass, aluminum, nickel and acrylic. This innovative system produces flawless photographs, vector images and fonts up to 529 dpi. The MPX-90 features a maximum printing area of 3.1” x 3.1” and imprints items as large as 3.9” x 7.9” x 1.5” with the cover closed. Users can also insert items of virtually any length when the cover is open. Additional features include automatic surface detection, a center vise, USB connectivity and a user-replaceable print head cartridge.

The MPX-90 is designed for jewelers, engravers, retailers, gift shops, kiosks and any business specializing in personalization. In addition to flat items such as pendants, dog tags and key chains, the MPX-90 adds text, graphics and photographs to curved objects including pens, cuff links and money clips. Quiet and compact, the MPX-90 leaves no residue behind, making it ideal for retail environments.

Design and Engraving Software Included

The MPX-90 comes with Metaza Studio photo editing software, which imports data files in AI, EPS, JPEG or BMP format and accepts data from digital cameras and compatible scanners. Users can add text, frames and borders, remove backgrounds, and rotate text and images. In addition, it supports vector designs which allows for faster, more precise production of text and line art.

The MPX-90 also includes Dr. Engrave, easy-to-use engraving software that inputs various types of text and bitmap images and supports industry standard True Type fonts. The software also comes with a built-in single stroke font editor (SFEdit) to convert any Windows True Type font into a stroke font that improves engraving speeds and allows the user to engrave smaller text without any type of overlap or bleed. Dr. Engrave supports variable data printing using .CSV or .TXT files imported into a template.

The MPX-90 is priced at $4,495 and available from authorized Roland dealers. For more information, please call 800-542-2307 or visit www.rolanddga.com.

In this article I offer my review of some of the exhibitions. As all such reviews are, these are my personal response to the exhibitions I saw. I did not set out to see all the exhibitions. Along the way I stumbled across some other exhibitions that either were not in the program or that I hadn’t intended to see.

In this article series I offer my review of some of the exhibitions. As all such reviews are, these are my personal response to the exhibitions I saw. I did not set out to see all the exhibitions. Rather I went through the exhibition program and chose ones in Ballarat and Creswick that appealed to me. Along the way I stumbled across some other exhibitions that either were not in the program or that I hadn’t intended to see.

Dorothy Simpson Krause’s latest book is a gem. Not specifically about digital processes, but a gem never the less. It is a book about how to make your own artist books. It covers a whole range of techniques and applications and is illustrated bya great selection of artist books. Continue reading “Book + Art – A book that covers making artist books”